Monday, June 30, 2008

The State Broadcasters















Lets Make T-Shirts – The State Broadcasters

Which state is that then? Glasgow, the state capital of indie.
What flavour of indie? Not a million miles from their label mates Wake The President, or even Electric Honey alumni Belle and Sebastian, only with orchestral augmentation that includes cello, glockenspiel, trombone and clarsach.
Clarsach? Nope, me neither.
Sounds a bit Fence collective: You could happily file this next to your Alasdair Roberts albums, although it would fit perfectly between Lambchop’s Nixon and Eels’ Daisies of the Galaxy.
Is it depressing? Not at all. This a sweetly drowsy song about first love, remembered with a lugubrious humour:
Let’s make sweet love
We are both 16 and it will be good
Let’s do it to Hatful of Hollow
A pregnancy scare will surely follow
Saucy! Try this for size, then:
You showed me your appendix scar
I could show you nothing
Except my red, red, red…face
Excellent! Electric Honey’s the best, isn’t it: Luckily, you have forgotten about Biffy Clyro. But we cannot forgive them.
Shouldn’t it be “let’s” not “lets”? Blame punk rock or falling educational standards, but for a song this good I think we can overlook their ignorance of the imperative mood.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't a clarach that wee harpy thing that's the Guinness logo? Might be wrong on that one, though:) Great lyrics ... sauce is alway welcome!

Fire Escape said...

Apparently so. 'Clarsach" is the Gaelic word for "small harp", and the instrument is sometimes known as the Celtic Harp.' Hope "what's a clarsach" is a question at some reader's pub quiz this week.

Anonymous said...

on the record cover it is actually 'Let's' with an apostrophe just in case anyone is in any doubt as to whether this band have been let down by the education system or not!

Fire Escape said...

Not on my cover it isn't. Or the label.